New editor-in-chief for Irish Mail

Sebastian Hamilton has been appointed editor-in-chief of the Mail titles in Ireland in succession to Eric Bailey.

He is promoted from his editorship of the Irish Mail on Sunday, a job that will now go to Conor O'Donnell, who has been editing the Irish Daily Mail.

Hamilton joined the Irish operations of Associated Newspapers from the UK in 2006, six months after the paper was launched in Ireland. He was then news editor of the Mail on Sunday in London. He had previously worked at the Sunday Telegraph, Scotland on Sunday and the Sunday Times.

Bailey, who is 58, will remain as consultant editor to the newspapers and as a non-executive director on the board of Associated Newspapers Ireland.

Circulation of the Irish Daily Mail has held up pretty well in a declining market, recording a sale of 50,780 in the first half of 2012.

The Irish Mail on Sunday, with a circulation of 108,981, is the third largest-selling Sunday paper in Ireland behind the Sunday Independent and Sunday World.